Cool On The InsideAddressing a Teenage Girls Self Esteem from the Inside Out.

The affects on teenage girls self esteem is pressurised by the complex social climate that we live in.

Cool On The Inside has the flexibility to be run as either a series of workshops or as a one-day workshop and will help to address many of the issues that our contemporary teenagers now face. Never before have our girls been in the position to have to navigate as much as they do now.

In her life time, a woman will have approximately 400-500 periods, that is a lot of years of menstruating ahead of a teenage girl. Negative connections to menstruation are often because of a lack of positive menstrual education. This lack of understanding regarding a woman's natural energy level and emotional changes greatly impacts a teenage girls self esteem. Menstruation is a fundamental experience of being a woman. Feelings of powerlessness, distain and negativity have a direct impact on our sense of womanhood.

Here is a short clip, which demonstrates beautifully the impact that negativity associated with being a girl and the potential effects on a teenage girls self esteem.

"Being cool is being your own self, not doing something that someone else is telling you to do". - Vanessa Hudgens

About the day...

The workshop has been tailored to suit girls approximately 14 to 16 years old.

During the first session of the day I’ll be introducing charting the menstrual cycle and understanding what’s going on during the cycle, emotionally and physically, and how a girl can look after herself before and during her period. Girls will make a set of cycle beads. These are a traditional method of teaching girls about their cycle from tribal Africa. I’ll adjust the content of this session depending on whether all participants have begun menstruating or not.

During the second session we’ll be looking at negotiating aspects of social life like peer pressure, cliques, parties, bitchiness, social media and so on. We will consider how these can effect a teenage girls self esteem, body image and self-awareness. When not aware of self, how can we be in charge of the decisions that we make? We’ll explore staying connected to oneself, boundaries, and body language through some fun processes.

Last but not least we will explore relationships: attraction, crushes, falling in love, sex and the responsibilities of sex, an introduction to contraception and protection against STDs, and looking after fertility.

Parents please note, that when I discuss contraception and sex, it is based on the all-important lens of relationship; trust, respect, communication, healthy choices etc. While actual choices about sex may be quite some time off, preparatory conversations are important and lead to healthy, conscious and appropriate decision making when the time comes and often the girls are very aware of the healthy or harmful decisions that some of their peers may be making. Similarly, while fertility may not seem to be a important consideration in a teenage girl, infertility and sub fertility affect a significant proportion of women later on, the World Health Organization have calculated that up to one in four couples has difficulties to conceive. A teenager’s awareness of sexual health, and learning to care for her fertility at this age may have a profound preventative effect of this distressing problem.

For the Girls...

Learning to ride the menstrual cycle. Like surfing a wave, it takes practice and experience and some girls find it more difficult than others, learning to navigate the energy and emotional changes that occur during the cycle. We will look at what’s really going on inside your body during a cycle, understanding the emotional ups and downs helps to put our experiences into perspective. We will discuss ways to look after yourselves during your period. We will learn how keep track of where you are in your cycle, some charting and we'll be making some cycle beads.

We'll have the chance to talk about managing girl friends, the cool kids and the pressures of social life, all whilst staying true to yourself – tips for handling peer pressure, bitchiness, cliques and parties, social media, knowing what you want, taking your time, feeling safe and in control, understanding body language and sending the right message.

Who is that cute boy? – What is being in love all about? What’s a crush? When are you ready for a relationship? When are you ready for sex? What responsibilities come with sex? What about contraception and STD protection?

Cool On The Insidefor girls aged 14-16

Dates of the next workshop to be announced. Be sure to let us know you are interested.

When the workshop is run as a series the girls are provided with valuable time between sessions that gives them an opportunity to form deeper questions relating to their own experiences. However, the business of teenage girls lives sometimes means that another commitment is too difficult, so Cool On The Inside is also run as a one-day workshop.

Supportive girl resources

One of my favourite resource pages is Might Girl. I think you could spend day's surfing around this website, and find more supportive information than you can afford to purchase. Great ways to support our teenage girls self esteem in a healthy nourishing way.

My favourite is the girls reading lists, books that support girls to vision themselves into the kind of future that mothers want for them.